Legendary folk singer Liam Clancy has died aged 74.The actor, singer and musician was the last surviving member of The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, who were credited with bringing Irish traditional music to a world audience in the 1960s.
Born in Carrick on Suir, Liam Clancy was the youngest of 11 children.
As a young man he dreamed of life on the stage, but there was music in his blood too.
In his late teens he met and travelled Ireland with US song collector Diane Hamilton Guggenheim and eventually travelled to the US with her.
Liam Clancy emigrated to America in the 1950s to join his brothers Tom and Paddy who were forging out an acting career in New York's theatre scene.
Along with Armagh-born Tommy Makem, the four began putting on concerts in the bohemian hothouse of Greenwich Village - initially to raise rent money for a small theatre.
'We had no intention at that stage of pursuing a singing career,' Clancy said later, 'but the singing became more and more part of our lives'.
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